Five NRIs on Forbes US richest list

Five Indian-Americans, topped by founder of IT major Syntel Bharat Desai have been named as the richest people in the United States by Forbes.

Interestingly, three of them, Bharat Desai, Silicon valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and founder of Symphony Technology Group Romesh Wadhwani are alumni of IIT Mumbai.

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Desai with a net worth of two billion dollars as of September 2012 has been ranked 239 in Forbes' annual list released on Wedenesday.

Desai (59), who founded Syntel in 1980, had worked at Tata Consultancy Services for four years before forming Syntel.

He stepped down as the chief executive of the firm in 2009 but still remains the chairman.

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Founder and Chairman of the Symphony Technology Group, Romesh Wadhwani (65) ranks next with a net worth $1.9 billion.

A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and IIT Mumbai, Wadhwani developed business software firm Aspect Development which he sold in 2000 during the height of the tech bubble for $9.3 billion.

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Google board member and shareholder Kavitark Ram Shriram (55) occupies the 298th rank with a net worth of $1.6 billion.

Manoj Bhargava (59), founder and CEO of the popular energy drink '5-hour energy' follows with net worth of $1.5 billion.

He is followed by Khosla with a net worth of $1.4 billion.

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His firm had a stake in social enterprise software company Yammer, which was purchased by Microsoft in July for $1.2 billion.

The net worth of the richest Americans grew by 13% in the past year to $ 1.7 trillion.

The list has been topped by Microsoft founder Bill Gates for 19 th year in a row.

Gates' net worth grew $7 billion last year to $66 billion.